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Portland City Hall collected $72,092.92 in fines and fees earlier this month from the operator of a scofflaw short-term rental listed on Airbnb.
It's the largest fine the city's Bureau of Development Services has successfully levied on an Airbnb rental for breaking city rules—in this case, operating six bedrooms when only two are allowed. Fourteen months after the city's first administrative hearing, and multiple appeals later, operator CityCraft—a company based in Portland—exhausted its appeals, paid the city and sold the Humboldt neighborhood house.
"That's a major, major victory for the neighbors and the city," says BDS spokesman Michael Liefeld.
Meanwhile, the same bureau now pledges it will attempt to enforce the rules against a Pearl District parking garage operated in defiance of city code.
Last week, BDS said it was uncertain whether to proceed with a case against a parking garage that was paying a $1,400 monthly fine and continuing to operate. Now the bureau tells WW it will go to an administrative hearing to try to fine the owner $1,000 a day if Harsch Investments, run by property magnate Jordan Schnitzer, doesn't reduce the number of garage spaces to eight from more than 50 this week.